Critical Impact (12 page)

“I think he's Marg's boarder.”

He nodded. “That's who he is, all right. I saw his car there.”

“A silver car?” Anna asked.

“Right.”

He took a gulp of his very sweet coffee and said, “I got a message from Liz right before the service. They didn't find any prints but yours on the cell phone, or the bell. But I'm not surprised at that. I wasn't expecting any.”

“Someone is trying to frame me,” Anna said.

“I know. And I'm going to find out who.” She looked down at her hot chocolate and said very quietly, “Thank you for believing me.”

He reached across the table and touched her left hand. The touch sent shivers through her body. She looked up and he was gazing at her intently. “During the last couple of weeks I've grown very fond of you, Anna. I know you had nothing to do with the bombing.”

Thank you.” Anna felt a heat rise in her neck.

When they finished their drinks, they decided that Stu would drive her home along the beachfront in the quad.

“I could go get my car and drive you home,” he'd offered.

“No. This is fine. A ride along the beach will be nice.”

It was.

All too soon the ride was over. The stretch of beach was not very long and within minutes they were at the path that led up to the residential area where her mother lived. He shut down the four-wheeler and hopped off.

“That was fun,” she said.

“When your arm is better and we can go longer distances, I'll take you all the way around Dragon Mountain. There's a trail there that's terrific.”

“That would be great.”

He helped her off the quad, then reached under her chin to undo the strap. Gently, he lifted the helmet off her head and laid it on the backseat. Then, he reached out, took her face into his hands and kissed her. He pulled her to him and held her that way for a long time.

As they broke apart and started up the trail to her mother's cottage, she wondered if she could trust him. She hoped so. But she was still afraid. She told him that.

“I believe you and I believe
in
you. You can trust me.”

Just before they hit the residential sidewalk, he stopped.

“Anna,” he said, suddenly serious. He put his arm around her waist, drew her to him and said quietly into her hair, “Just walk with me. Quickly.”

“Stu?” She looked up at him.

“Just come quickly. Someone is following us. I'll tell you when we get to your mother's.”

“Stu,” she whispered. “You're scaring me.”

“It's okay. I'm with you.”

He held her very close to him as they walked fast to the front door of her mother's house. Inside, he said, “I heard something in the bushes. I just want you to be safe.”

Catherine and Lois were home. While he carefully checked every door and window, he asked them how Marg was.

“We got her home okay. She's just a little shook up,” Lois said.

“I think this whole thing with the bomb and Johnny is really frightening her,” Catherine said. “I hope you find out who really did this.”

“We're working on it,” he said.

 

With Anna safely at home with her mother, Stu moved softly through a patch of woods bordering the lake. Whoever it was couldn't have gotten far. And whoever it was might hold the key to this entire case. Stu found no one. But someone
had
been there. As he and Anna had walked up the path through the woods to her mother's house, he had heard the distinct sound of a person in the underbrush. And that person might still be here. He found a long stick on the ground and moved the
bush aside. He was looking for anything that would prove that somebody had been following them. But, as on Dragon Mountain, there was nothing here. He kept looking with his flashlight, even though it was darker now.

He found his way back to the narrow path and headed down to his four-wheeler. Just as he was about to step onto the beach, he heard it again—that same quiet rustle in the brush. Was it the sound of a person lying low and trying not to be heard? Stu knew the woods. He'd grown up hunting with his father. He'd spent his boyhood in the woods. He knew the sounds that the woods made, and the sounds the woods did not make. This was not a sound the woods made.

He turned off his flashlight, looked in the direction from which the noise had come and took careful, measured steps toward it.

Then he heard it again. Someone was there! His senses keen, he stepped off the trail and into the underbrush. About ten yards away was a large fallen tree. Behind it would be the perfect hiding place. A person not wanting to be seen could crouch there and watch for hours. He crept closer.

Approximately ten feet away from the fallen log, he stopped and listened again. He heard the sounds faintly. He crept noiselessly closer.

At the last minute, he yelled, “Hey!”

He rounded the log in time to see two raccoons turn and run from where they had been playing.

If every nerve in his body hadn't been so tautly wound, this would almost have been funny.

He headed home on his quad. It was now fully dark. That settled it. He was losing it. He was tired. This case was taking its toll. He sighed.

He decided to stop in and see how Marg was doing. She answered the door wrapped in one of Johnny's robes and holding a mug of tea. It looked as if she had been crying.

“Are you okay, Marg? I just thought I'd stop in and see how you were doing. See if you needed anything.”

“I'm okay. Thanks for coming by.”

He said, “You had a bit of a scare at the church, didn't you?” He still didn't know what had frightened her so much. “Was it Anna who frightened you? Anna is just trying to be helpful. She cares a lot about you. She's worried about you.”

“Why isn't she in jail, Stu? Wasn't she arrested?”

“She's been released to her mother's custody,” Stu said.

“But she frightens me, Stu. That woman frightens me to death! I can't walk the streets knowing she's not behind bars.”

“Don't be afraid of Anna, Marg. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

She looked as if she was going to say something, then frowned and didn't.

Stu asked, “When does Johnny come home for good?”

“I'm not ready for him to come home. I have to have some ramps installed for the wheelchair and they were supposed to come and put the ramps in today, but they didn't come. While I was in church, they were supposed to be working on them, but nobody came.”

“Maybe I could help,” he said. “And what about your boarder? I met him at church and he seems like a nice guy. I'm sure he and I could work together and get those ramps in.” Stu didn't know why he brought up the subject of her boarder. He had only talked to the man briefly. Yet there was something about the young man that struck Stu as strange.

She shook her head. “I couldn't ask him to help. He's only renting from me.”

Stu asked, “I'm just curious. How did that guy come to be living here? Is he someone Johnny knows?”

She stared at him for several seconds before she shook her head. “He's just somebody from my church. Just someone who needed a place to stay.”

And he drives a silver car that has followed me on more than one occasion,
Stu thought. When he had seen that silver car at the church this evening he had made up his mind to talk to this man and find out just what his business in town was.

“I'm thinking of leaving him, you know,” Marg said.

Stu looked up at her sharply. For one very weird
moment he thought she was talking about her boarder.

She put her mug of tea down on the table by the entrance and ran a hand through her hair. “I'm just trying to figure out if I should go now before he gets home. I'm talking about Johnny. He and Anna deserve each other.”

Stu stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Anna and Johnny. I know she has eyes for him. I can see it. And I'm thinking about not being here when Johnny finally comes home.”

“That's ridiculous,” he said. “That's just not true.” It was uncomfortable being in the middle of someone's marriage problems. He didn't want to take sides, yet he had seen Johnny with that woman in the pink suit. He remembered what Johnny had told him, how Marg had changed when she started going to that church. Still, that didn't give Johnny an excuse to run around.

“I'm not so sure,” Marg said. “If you are looking at someone who might have wanted to kill my husband look at one of his many women. And you might want to begin with Anna. Everyone knows she did it. That's why, when she came to me at my church, I was afraid.” She looked into his eyes. There were tears in hers. “I was afraid, Stu. When she walked over to me, I was afraid.”

He looked down at her. “Marg, she was just trying to help you. I know Anna, and you have nothing to be
afraid of. Is your boarder in? I'd like to talk with him. I met him at the church, but we didn't get a chance to finish our conversation.”

She looked up at him worriedly and said, “I don't know. I didn't see him come home. Did you see his car?” She seemed agitated. “I don't know where he is, where he goes.”

“I'll look,” Stu said. “I'll try his door. Are you going to be okay?”

“If my doors are all locked, I'll be okay.”

“You have my number. Call me if you need anything.”

Before he left he made sure that all Marg's doors and windows were locked and that she was safe.

Then he knocked on the basement door. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket, indicating a text message, so he pulled out the phone. It was from Steve. Call me when you can. I have some interesting information about the wire, the message said.

A few moments later the man he'd met that evening at church opened the door. He still wore his baseball cap, but his glasses were off. “Yes?”

“I wanted to talk to you earlier, but we were interrupted.”

He scratched his nose. “Why did you want to talk with me?”

Stu edged himself into the room. He leaned his arm up against the door frame. “How do you know Marg and Johnny?”

The man shrugged. His face was pinched and his features sharp. “As I told you at church, I needed a place to live and Marg opened her home to me.”

“Where are you from? Are you here on vacation?”

“Why the questions?”

“I'm just concerned about your landlady, Marg Seeley. I don't like it when people take advantage of her.”

“No one's taking advantage of her, believe me,” he said. “I was just about to go to bed. It's been a long day for me.”

“Speaking of that, what do you do all day?”

“I'm looking for work here.”

“You've come to Whisper Lake Crossing looking for work? People who are looking for work leave Whisper Lake Crossing.”

He shrugged, and gave a bit of a smile. “What can I say? I like the lake.”

“What kind of work are you looking for?”

“Oh, anything…”

“I'm Stu McCabe, by the way,” he said. “I didn't get your name.” He inched slowly into the man's room. It was simply that—just one room besides a bathroom. In one corner was an unmade bad, next to that was a table with a laptop computer and along the opposite side, a small kitchenette with a sink. Clothes were scattered here and there. In short, the place was a mess. There were a series of hooks beside the door
where the man had hung some sweaters and jackets, among them a couple of baseball caps and a bright red jacket. On the table, the man's laptop was open. He'd been playing a game of Solitaire.

“That's because I didn't give it,” he said. “Look, I'm a private person. I came here to get away. I came here to start over and look for a job. I don't know why you're bugging me. When I'm ready to come out and sit all day at the Schooner Café and talk to people, I'll let you know. But for now I just want to be left in peace.”

Stu was not satisfied. Something was going on here. And for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was.

Stu approached the man. “I'm with the sheriff's department,” he said. “And I'd like to talk with you about your car.”

The man looked at him wryly. “My car? What about my car? Do I have a parking ticket?”

“Nothing so simple as that. You were following me in your car and I want to know why.”

“Following you? When? And why would I follow you? This is the first time I've ever seen you.” The man stroked his chin and regarded Stu with a smirk. “I get it. You think I've got something to do with that bombing accident, don't you? I'm not from here and so you happen to see my car and right away I'm a suspect? Is that how it works up here in the north country? And following you? Let me tell you something.
If I see a police car, I'm like every other car out there. I slow down.” He opened his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You want to search my car? Be my guest. You're not going to find anything.”

Stu had to reluctantly concede that the man had a point. No judge in the world would sign a search warrant on such flimsy evidence. Stu said, “If you hear anything, see anything, please call me.”

Stu dropped his business card on the man's counter and left. He wasn't satisfied, though. There was something about the man's demeanor that just wasn't sitting right with Stu. Call it gut feeling. Call it whatever you will, but on his way down to his cottage, he made a decision to keep an eye on Marg's boarder.

A
nna was having a frustrating day. She had just come home from the hospital and the news wasn't all that good. It looked as if her hand and wrist were going to require more surgery. Plus, a whole lot more physiotherapy after that. The doctor would know more in a couple of weeks. As she had sat in the hospital waiting to see the surgeon, she felt that everyone was looking at her. After all, she had been arrested for murder.

Lois and her mother were in Bangor for the day on a shopping bus tour, something they had signed up for long before any of this happened.

Stu had offered to come to the hospital with Anna, but she had declined.

“I'll be just fine,” she had told him. “It's just routine. I'll be in and out.”

She had told him about the appointment when he had called to tell her that the sound in the bush was nothing more than a pair of raccoons.

“There was no one following us in the bush. It was just some raccoons.”

Her mother had made some coffee, and it was still in the coffeepot in the kitchen. She managed to pour some into a mug and then zap it in the microwave for a minute. It wouldn't be the best in the world, but it was too much work to make a fresh pot when she could only use one hand. She took it out to the front porch, set it on the wooden table and then went back inside for her Bible. She was getting used to carrying things one at a time.

Outside she sat down and was about to open to a passage in
Matthew
when she noticed the envelope. It was plain and white and legal-size, and it was leaning up against the porch railing. Was it something for her mother? Maybe it had dropped out of her mother's hands when she'd brought in the mail from the box out front.

She put her coffee down on a table and picked it up. It was addressed to her. And since there was no stamp on it she knew it hadn't been mailed. Someone had laid it here.

Maybe it was a get-well card. She'd received a number of these from people in the church.

She sat down on the porch swing and opened it up. Inside was one white sheet of paper. Centered on the page were the words,
HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT? DO NOT GO TO THE POLICE.

She turned it over and frowned. Both the envelope
and the note had been printed on a computer. It wasn't signed and there was no return address, so she had no idea who had dropped it off. She folded the paper back up and put it in the envelope. But she continued to be confused. How much did
who
want? She had no idea what it meant.

She pulled out her cell phone to call Stu when an unfamiliar car pulled into the driveway. Anna stuffed the envelope into her Bible and stood up. She smiled when she saw that it was Rodney. He was alone and grinning. He carried an enormous flowering plant.

“Hey, Anna,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, um, I'm going to be trying out for Wimbledon tomorrow.”

“Ha, ha. You're funny.” He brought the plant up onto her porch and set it down. “I thought this plant might cheer you up.”

“It does. Thank you, Rodney. Just seeing you cheers me up. I was at the hospital, and the news isn't all that good. I'll be in this contraption—” she lifted up her right hand “—for a bit longer than I anticipated.” She told him what the doctor had said.

“Oh, Anna, that's too bad. But it won't be forever. You're talented and smart and you'll be back at the community college sooner than you think.”

That was something Anna didn't even want to think about—her work. “There's a bit of cold coffee in the pot in the kitchen and a working microwave. But I can tell you for sure that the coffee is not all that good.”

“How about if I make us a fresh pot? Dump that stuff out. I can smell it from here. It's burned.”

They went inside and she sat down at a kitchen table while he set about washing out the coffeepot, grinding some beans and starting a new pot. It occurred to her that she'd left her Bible outside with the letter inside. She'd have to remember to pick it up later. For now, though, it was nice to have a familiar face, one of her favorite students, here for a visit. The brewing coffee did smell good.

Rodney found two mugs in her mother's cupboard and set them on the table while he told her that a special scholarship was being established in Claire's and Hilary's names. Already almost a thousand dollars had been donated.

Anna was pleased. They chatted about that for a while. Rodney and Claire's sister, Lily, had been instrumental in setting it up. He poured cream into his coffee and looked at her across the table. “So when
do
you think you'll be back teaching?”

“I don't know if I'll ever be able to.”

He looked at her dumbfounded. “Of course you will. You're a great teacher, Anna, and you can still teach. You're our teacher and in Hollywood you had such fantastic experience. You teach with your head not your hands. The artistry is not in your fingers—it's in your head.”

She reached over and touched his arm with her left hand. “You're so sweet to be telling me this.”

“Well, it's true, Anna. I'm so sorry you had to go to the hospital by yourself. You should have called. I would have come. Isn't your mother here? I saw her earlier.”

“You couldn't have. She and my aunt have been in Bangor since the wee hours.”

“Maybe it wasn't your mother, then. I saw a woman on your porch—I just assumed it was your mother. There was a guy with her, too. Before I got partway up the walk the guy yelled to me that if I was coming to see you, you weren't here.”

Anna stopped and looked at him. “You saw two people on this front porch? Here? What did they look like?”

“I didn't get a really good look.”

“But you saw people on my porch?”

He told her that the man looked to be in his mid-thirties, and the woman was hidden behind the wind chimes, so he really didn't see her at all. He just assumed it was Anna's mother, but she didn't speak.

Anna cupped her hand around the coffee mug, and tried to maintain her self-control. Someone was on her porch and this was the someone who could have put that note here.

“Have the police figured out who Hilary was afraid of?” Rodney asked.

She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

Rodney frowned. “I just keep thinking about her, ya know? Did you know she filed a restraining
order against her husband? I know she was afraid of him.”

“I didn't even know she'd been married until recently.”

“Lily, Claire's sister, told me about the restraining order. It was something she just remembered.”

“I wish I had known all this about Hilary. It would have helped me to understand her better. I just feel so bad about both Hilary and Claire. Sometimes I'm just overcome with sadness.”

“I know what you mean.”

By the time they finished their coffee it was late afternoon.

 

After Rodney left, Anna called Stu, but got his voice mail, so she turned on the porch light and sat on the porch swing. She retrieved her Bible from the porch and pulled out and read the note again. She still couldn't understand what it meant. She put it back in the envelope and back into her Bible, and put the Bible on her nightstand. She felt antsy and sad. She was also surprised that Stu hadn't been there to answer his phone. He was probably busy. There were a lot of things going on.

She decided to try out the parlor's new reading nook for the first time. Anna picked up her novel in her left hand and flicked the reading nook light switch with the hard surface of her cast.

She felt a jolt go through her body, saw a flash
of light and smelled something acrid and sharp, like burning electrical wires. She felt herself flung toward the bed, where she landed with a thud, half on and half off, and blacked out.

 

“Anna!”

Anna opened her eyes. “Wha…?” She shaded her eyes with her left hand. Someone was shining what looked like a flashlight in her eyes.

“Anna!” She recognized her mother's voice. “Are you okay? The electricity's off. And what are you doing with your head hanging over the edge of the bed like that?”

“Mom, um, I…” Her head hurt. She tried to get up. “What am I doing like this?”

Her mother helped to lift her back onto the bed. “You're in the parlor. Lois and I just got home, and all the lights were off….”

“I turned the porch light on for you. I distinctly remember…. Did the power go off?”

“It must have. When we got home there wasn't a light on in the house.”

Anna sat up and put her legs over the edge of the bed. She rubbed her temple with her left hand. Her right arm ached in a way it hadn't for a while. Also, the fingers of both hands tingled. Her head hurt, but that could have been from hanging over the side of the bed.

Lois asked, “Are you okay? You're not misusing your pain pills are you, Anna?”

Anna shot her a look. She didn't like her aunt's insinuations. She was fully upright now. “I wish I knew what happened.”

“Uh-oh,” Lois said. She was aiming a flashlight at an electrical switch plate on the wall of her room. The wallboard around the switch plate was blackened. “Does this have something to do with why the electricity is off?”

Catherine took a look at it. Then Anna remembered. She had hit the light switch to the reading nook with her cast, and the next thing she knew she was lying on the bed, half on and half off. She told her mother and aunt this.

Catherine said, “Oh, dear. It must have been a faulty switch and now the electricity's off in the whole house.”

Anna said she felt dazed. The bones of her legs hurt.

“You were shocked!” Catherine said, rushing toward her. “You touched that and you got an electrical shock.”

“Maybe.”

“We're going to take you to the hospital,” her mother said.

“Must have been a short,” Lois said. “And we just had all this rewired. This should not have happened.
You said you turned on the light switch with your cast?”

“I was holding my novel in the other hand. So I sort of leaned into it with my right arm. I thought for once that I would actually try doing two things at the same time.”

“Let's have a look at that cast,” Catherine said. They did. The place on the cast where she had leaned into the light switch was blackened and burned like the wall.

Catherine said, “That fiberglass cast may have saved your life. But you should go to the hospital anyway. I'm calling Stu.”

Anna didn't complain. She held weakly on to her mother's arm as they made their way to the car.

Stu met Anna, Catherine and Lois at the hospital. By the time he got there, they had found Anna a bed and the doctor had been called in. They ran some tests, but everything looked normal. Still, they wanted to keep her overnight.

Stu told them that Alec and Steve planned to go over every inch of the wiring in the house. They were already there.

“I'm sure it's something with the old wiring,” Catherine complained to Stu. “The electrician said they were going to replace all of it. They must have missed something.”

Anna listened as Catherine gave Stu the names and
numbers of the electrician she'd hired. “I'm so sorry,” Catherine said to her.

“Don't be sorry,” Anna said, reaching out for her mother.

“It's not your fault,” Stu said. “We'll find out if this was deliberate.”

 

When Stu got to Catherine's house, Alec and Marlene's husband, Roy, were already there. Lanky Roy had his long legs wrapped around a low hassock on the parlor floor. He was examining the offending electrical box with his long, knobby fingers. He wore latex gloves, Stu noticed. They would probably be sending this switchbox to the forensics lab to be thoroughly examined. Stu knew that process could take months. Roy, however, would be able to give them a good preliminary evaluation.

Roy looked up when Stu arrived. “I wish Catherine had called me to this install this. Who did she get? Do you know?”

Stu said he didn't know.

“It's all wrong. It's totally backward. We've got the ground wire hooked in with a positive that should be a negative, and the negative's just hanging loose. No wonder it all shorted out. In fact, it was wired to send the electric current to the metal box as soon as you threw the switch. That means the little screws on the switch cover would be a full 120 volts. I told Alec we need to look at every electrical box in this house.”

“That's a good idea. Do you think somebody jimmied this particular one?” Stu asked.

Roy shook his head. “Hard to say. But it sure looks like it. They'd have to know what they were doing, though. I mean, it takes just as much electrical know-how to get a light switch to short out like this as it does to put one in properly.”

Alec was scrutinizing the blackened wallboard. He said, “Steve is coming. I'd like his take on things, as well. There's something going on, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

Stu heartily agreed.

Alec went on, “Steve is meticulous. I hope you don't have anything planned for tonight, Stu. Because I think it's going to be a long night. If I know Steve, he's going to want to go over this entire house with a fine-tooth comb.”

“Fine with me.” If this would finally prove that Anna had nothing to do with the City Hall bombing, then it was worth it. But was this connected to the bombing at all? How did the pieces fit together?

“We're going to be here for a long time, so I think the ladies are going to have to find another place to stay for the time being,” Alec said.

“I'll call Bette,” Stu said.

“I was thinking of Steve and Nori's place at Trail's End, but Flower Cottage would even be better. It's closer to everything.”

When Stu called Bette, she was more than willing
to open up her home. In addition, Stu and Alec decided to stay there, too, along with Alec's wife, Megan. Bette had plenty of rooms and it would be good to have a couple of officers there. She had no other guests at the moment.